ALLIANCE HITS VIGILANCE BUMP

It was at the crack of dawn on Sept em ber 28 that a Pun jab police contin­ gent landed at Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira’s residence in Chandigarh. They were there to arrest him in a 2015 drugs bust case where his alleged aide, Gurdev Singh, and nine others were con­ victed.

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

The police say Khaira’s name emerged later in the investigation, in 2017, which is why he is calling it “politi­ cal vendetta”. In February this year, the Supreme Court did quash a summons in the case, but in 2021, the Enforcement Dire ct orate had charged him with money­laundering. He had spent 80 days in jail before get­ ting bail. This time, after two days of police custody, Khaira was sent to judicial custody.

In six years, a lot has changed for Khaira. Back in 2017, he was leader of the opposition in the assembly as an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator. Those days, he was blaming the ‘vendetta’ on the Congress regime of the time, but now, since his return to the party, Khaira’s vitriol is reserved for his erstwhile colleagues in the ruling AAP. More than his own twisted fortunes, the police action has come as a thorny turn in the ties between the two parties at the national level— they are both part of the national opposition INDIA bloc. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has already warned that if “they (AAP) do injustice with us, it won’t be tolerated”.